Search age:

Search in:

Sherrin to offer jobs to child stitchers' parents

Ben Doherty

Sherrin has promised to offer employment to the parents of all of the child labourers who previously worked stitching its footballs.

Already, nearly 70 former home stitchers have begun work, on better pay, in the factory of Sherrin's Indian manufacturer, Spartan.

Last week, The Saturday Age revealed that children as young as 10, and almost always girls, were being pulled out of school and put to work, stitching Sherrin balls for as many as 10 hours a day, seven days a week.

Stitching a junior Auskick ball, or a promotional ball for the North Melbourne Grand Final breakfast, took a child more than an hour and earned them seven Rupees, about 12 cents.

Advertisement

Chris Lambert, Australian managing director of Sherrin's parent company Russell Corporation told The Age that families previously sub-contracted to stitch Sherrins in their homes would be given the opportunity to keep working, under improved conditions, at Spartan's factory, and for better wages.

Sherrin has said 90 per cent of its former home stitchers will take up offers to work in the factory. The other 10 per cent have elected not to.

"Sherrin has requested to Spartan to employ directly, adult family members of persons previously engaged by Spartan, to continue work in the manufacture of Sherrin footballs. Spartan has confirmed its undertaking to do so," he said.

"Additionally, 68 people who were previously sub-contracted by Spartan have now commenced full-time employment with Spartan on more beneficial terms.”

A further 30 per cent of the former sub-contracted workforce will begin work with Spartan next week.

"The balance of the previous adult sub-contracted workforce, predominantly women who do not wish to work in a factory environment, have been approached by Spartan to investigate other potential roles for them in the business,” Mr Lambert said.

Previously, Sherrin's football production in India was handled solely by its Indian manufacturer Spartan. But the company will now send its own employee to live in India to oversee the supply chain.

"Sherrin is sending an Australian… employee to India to be based there for as long as it takes for Sherrin to be confident that their instructions are being carried out as requested," Mr Lambert said.

In the wake of The Age's evidence, Sherrin immediately pulled all of it sub-contracted football stitching work, mandating that no work was to be performed outside of Spartan's factory.

Welfare activists and unions argued that simply removing stitching work, without offering alternative employment, would harm rather than help the families dependent on that work, the most vulnerable workers in Sherrin's supply chain.

Sherrin said, from the outset, it was concerned to protect the livelihoods of those families who had worked on its balls.

For most of the families working on Sherrin balls, football stitching was their only source of income. Most stitchers worked for less than a dollar a day.

Sherrin said the use of child labour making its footballs was the work of one rogue contractor.

But The Age's 12-month investigation found that the use of child labour in the sports ball industry in India was widespread and systemic.

The Age found child stitchers, as young as seven, in both the cities of Jalandhar and Meerut, stitching not only Sherrins, but other international sports brands such as Canterbury, and balls for India's domestic market.